The impact of the environment in general and climate change in particular is now entrenched as a key political concern. The comprehensively revised edition of this popular text provides an accessible, concise and genuinely international introduction to the politics of the environment in theory and practice at both national and global level.

This volume analyzes the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on energy transition and climate change from an economic perspective. Since its emergence in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a powerful effect on multiple facets of the global economy. The unknown scope and duration of the pandemic and its associated economic shocks have made energy security and the process of clean energy transition highly unpredictable. To combat this, this edited volume presents a wide range of theoretical and empirical research at the nexus of the COVID-19 pandemic and energy, resource, and environmental economics. Chapters focus on four major themes: the impact of crises on energy security, the role of resilient energy systems in society, the challenges of clean energy transition, and economic impacts of COVID-19 on climate change. Providing rigorous analysis of an evolving situation that will continue to impact the global energy market, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students of energy economics, environmental economics, and resource economics as well as policy professionals involved in climate change and energy transition.

Transportation networks are essential to the functioning of societies and economies and provide the infrastructure for the movement of people and goods over space and time. The existence and utilization of transportation networks are fundamental to the modern age and the negative effects of congestion and pollution associated with their increasing usage demand urgent attention.This book cogently addresses the question as to whether transportation networks are sustainable: that is, can they last, given the growing demands on the network, on the one hand, and the desire to alleviate the associated negative impacts, on the other. Anna Nagurney answers the question positively by providing a rigorous foundation for the formulation, analysis, and computation of solutions to such problems through the use of appropriate policies ranging from tolls and tradable pollution permits to the design of the networks themselves. Sustainable Transportation Networks will be of great value to students, researchers, and practitioners of transportation studies, environmental economics, regional science, and urban planning.

Advanced Cultural Districts explores the organisational design issues within the cultural heritage sector, with particular focus on the advanced forms of cultural districts for local socio-economic development.

As global great power competition intensifies, there is growing concern about the geopolitical future of Antarctica. This book delves into the question of how can we anticipate, prepare for, and potentially even shape that future? Now in its 60th year, the Antarctic Treaty System has been comparatively resilient and successful in governing the Antarctic region. This book assesses how our ability to make accurate predictions about the future of the Antarctic Treaty System reduces rapidly in the face of political and biophysical complexity, uncertainty, and the passage of time. This poses a critical risk for organisations making long-range decisions about their policy, strategy, and investments in the frozen south. Scenarios are useful planning tools for considering futures beyond the limits of standard prediction. This book explores how a multi-disciplinary focus of classical geopolitics might be applied systematically to create scenarios on Antarctic futures that are plausible, rigorous, and robust. This book illustrates a pragmatic, nine-step scenario development process, using the topical issue of military activities in Antarctica. Along the way, the authors make suggestions to augment current theory and practice of geopolitical scenario planning. In doing so, this book seeks to rediscover the importance of a classical (primarily state-centric) lens on Antarctic geopolitics, which in recent decades has been overshadowed by more critical perspectives. This book is written for anyone with an interest in the rigorous assessment of geopolitical futures - in Antarctica and beyond.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a growing struggle has arisen between those who would like to repeal existing environmental policy and those who would like to see greater environmental protection. On both sides, however, many of the arguments remain grounded in ideology. This book attempts to moderate the conflict by exploring methods to accurately measure and assess the effectiveness of environmental policies.Does Environmental Policy Work? examines our ability to assess the impact of environmental policies on the environment in particular, and on social welfare in general. The distinguished authors explore the theory of assessment, concentrating primarily on a conceptual examination of the evaluation process. They extend existing tools and identify alternative indicators and methods of appraisal. The focus then shifts to the use of these tools in real-world policy situations by applying them to a series of case studies from Africa, North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Although the authors base their assessment predominantly on economic efficiency, they also pay due regard to other interdisciplinary approaches and decision-making criteria. This comprehensive exploration of the theory and practice of environmental assessment will be of great interest to scholars of environmental economics, ecological economics and environmental science. The book will also provide guidance and direction for practitioners in the fields of environmental policy and management on how to effectively measure the outcomes of environmental policies.

Concerns about natural resource scarcity, together with the increased awareness of environmental problems, has led to widespread interest in green accounting, which attempts to extend the standard national accounts to include the yields from natural and environmental resources. For this volume, Professors Lofgren and Li have selected the classic articles in this rapidly growing area, with particular reference to sustainability. They have also written an authoritative new introduction which offers a comprehensive overview of the literature both from a historical and a formal theoretical perspective. This volume will be an invaluable reference source for scholars and practitioners seeking an in-depth understanding of the main issues in this important field.

Structural change in basic industries is usually interpreted as an autonomous economic process. Some authors claim that there is a tendency to use the "end of the era of materials", thus resulting in a decline of the basic industries. Such a process would obviously benefit the environment. Classic economic theories, which deal with structural change in a rather holistic way, correspond to this trend, predicting either a shift towards manufacturing and services or a relocation of old basic industries to developing countries. On the basis of this dematerialization hypothesis, comparative case studies analyze in detail the driving forces behind industrial restructuring with regard to different industries and countries in Europe, where such a decline has been observed in recent years.

"Integrated Risk Governance: Science Plan and Case Studies of Large-scale Disasters" is the first book in the IHDP-Integrated Risk Governance Project Series. It consists of two parts: Part I: Integrated Risk Governance Project Science Plan, which outlines the challenge, research programme, outcomes, and implementation strategy of the IRG Project; and Part II: Case Studies of Large-scale Disasters, which includes case analyses of experience, lessons learned and recommendations on various large-scale disasters around the world, such as the Tangshan and Wenchuan earthquakes and the great ice storm in China, European heat waves, and Hurricane Katrina in the USA. The community model of integrated natural disaster risk governance and paradigm of catastrophe risk governance in China are also presented. Prof. Peijun Shi works at Beijing Normal University, China; Prof. Carlo Jaeger works at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany; Prof.Qian Ye works at Beijing Normal University, China.

This text reports the more policy-oriented results of the Biodiversity programme of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Beijer Institute. The programme brought economists and ecologists together to consider where the problem in biodiversity loss really lies, what costs it has for society, and how it might best be addressed. The results are different from those reported in other works on the subject. Biodiversity loss matters for all ecosystems - not just the megadiversity tropical forests. And it matters because it compromises the resilience and so the productivity of those systems.

The adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997 was a major achievement in the endeavour to tackle the problem of global climate change at the dawn of the 21st century. After many years of involvement in the negotiation process, the book's two internationally recognised authors now offer the international community a first hand and inside perspective of the debate on the Kyoto Protocol. The book provides a comprehensive scholarly analysis of the history and content of the Protocol itself as well as of the economic, political and legal implications of its implementation. It also presents a perspective for the further development of the climate regime. These important features make this book an indispensable working tool for policy makers, negotiators, academics and all those actively involved and interested in climate change issues in both the developed and developing world.

Controlling Pollution in Transition Economies examines and evaluates the recent experience of implementing pollution charges and the use of environmental permits in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.The book focuses on controlling point-source air and water pollution. It describes and analyses the experience of implementing pollution charges and fines, and the interactions of these fiscal instruments with systems of pollution permits. The ten country case studies have been written by specialists who have been or are actively involved with the development or revision of pollution charges. Based on the experience of these countries, general conclusions are drawn for implementing pollution charge systems in other contexts. This book will encourage new theoretical and empirical work on the problem of implementing economic instruments (pollution charges), in combination with 'command-and-control' instruments (pollution permits). Practitioners and policy analysts as well as graduate students, academics, researchers and environmental consultants will find this book an important contribution to the existing literature.

This book offers original economic analyses on the economy-environment relationship in Eastern and Central Europe. Drawing on the Hungarian experience, it provides empirical evidence on the reform of environmental policy which can be applicable to similar problems in other transition economies.The macroeconomic shocks of the transition process in Central and Eastern Europe have been exceptional in both their intensity and speed. The implications of this adjustment process are examined in relation to their effects on environmental policy, with special emphasis on the rethinking of standard environmental policy recommendations for transition economies. The authors focus on a variety of issues including the environmental concerns raised by the privatization process and to what extent the less rigorous environmental regulations in Hungary attract foreign direct investment. There is also a critical overview of the existing literature and an examination of the costs of reducing air pollution and the use of the contingent valuation method to measure the economic benefits of improving air quality in Hungary. In addition the authors assess the effects of industrial restructuring on emissions and analyse incentive-based policy measures including prospects for emission trading. Their conclusions challenge the common perception that energy pricing policy is the most important policy measure to induce structural changes in transition economies that are beneficial to the environment. Economics for Environmental Policy in Transition Economies will be of interest to policymakers, academics and postgraduates working in the fields of transition economics, environmental economics and environmental valuation.

The challenge of our time is the greening of products. Different tools and concepts to support this process have been developed in the past decade. Among others, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) appears as one of the most instructive management instruments for gaining insight into product-related environmental impacts and for supporting an effective integration of environmental aspects in business and economy. Research on LCA was and still is focused on improving the methodology. In fact, the "LCA technique" has significantly improved over the last few years. However, this research progress did nearly not stress the application context of LCA and its embodiment into business and industry. This is precisely the primary focus of the present book. Based on the empirical information of a large survey and of 20 company case studies, the book describes the set of applications and uses, as well as the dynamics of the adoption and integration patterns of LCA within business and industry.

Stimulated by the concern for environmental problems that arose during the 1970s and 1980s, related both to global and national questions of sustain ability, the German government committed itself to advancing ecosystem research as a central component of planning for environment ally, economically, and socially sound policies and for resource manage ment during the 21 st century. Ecosystem research has been promoted at institutions spread throughout the country and that are favorably struc tured to conduct interdisciplinary studies. Research funding is derived from both the federal union and state governments. Results from the research programme at several of these institutions are summarized in this volume: 1. to provide a status report on process understanding within ecosystem types that are viewed as building blocks of complex, highly-modified Central European landscapes, 2. to document progress at institutions pursuing ecosystem science and promoting interdisciplinary approaches, 3. to support the next steps in generalizing the research results, e. g., to obtain a picture of ecosystem function in time and space or oflandscape function, and 4. to examine how the results may be applied to better manage natural resources and achieve sustainability.

A review of the literature on environmental taxes, focusing on European experiences, and analysing how such taxes can contribute to green causes as well as reducing the tax burden from "ordinary" taxation. The authors examine the potential 'double dividend' from tax reform for helping the environment, reducing unemployment and encouraging growth.

This volume consists of three sections connected by the elucidation of differences in perspective between people and polities. The first, concentrating on ecology, serves in part to further explore the theme of climate change. It looks into aquifer usage and ecology in the Midwestern United States, farming and climate shifts in Costa Rica and in Burkina Faso, and goat herding and conservation issues in the Himalayas. The second section focuses on exchange transactions and relations in a variety of situations and settings: among Nigerian immigrant business owners in New York City, along the path of the famous Koh-i-noor Diamond from India to the Tower of London, and between dealers and buyers in illegal narcotics markets in the Eastern, Midwestern, and Pacific Northwestern USA. Finally, papers in the third section share a concern with individual and group adaptations to certain conditions of life. Offered are investigations into relations between stock brokers and professional investors in Malaysia, attempts to foster innovation in Western Japan, women's farming strategies and autonomy in Western Kenya, and alternative healing decisions and practices in Brazil.

This book focuses on describing policy instruments in different countries. Its purpose is not only descriptive but also, to some extent, advocatory. We believe that economic instruments can make an important contribution to an environmentally less disruptive path of development. The design of economic instruments is however a fine art and depends among other things on their political acceptability and this acceptability is of course influenced by experience. It is therefore important to provide information on the use of policy instruments in other countries. Policies are currently developing quite fast and thus a book such as this one can inevitably not capture more than a "snapshot" view at a single moment of time. We would hope that the book encourages more experimentation with economic instruments and that countries will make a fuller use of the whole arsenal of economic policy instruments. If the book does succeed in this sense then it will soon become dated as policies change -but that would be a price well worth paying! The book combines a dozen country monographs together with a few international surveys on particular topics (gasoline pricing, vehicle regulations, acid rain, deforestation and global warming). These papers are intended to illustrate the diversity of policy options available. The actual policies adopted depend on economic as well as ecological conditions. The country studies cover two "Western" countries and then concentrate on formerly planned and developing countries. They show that economic instruments are still generally thought of as new and innovative.

This book considers the possibility of adjusting traditional economic measures of income and welfare to account for natural resource extraction and environmental degradation.It presents and reviews the limitations of an operational method for measuring income from resource extraction in both open and closed economies. In addressing closed economies, the discussion centres on the relationship between income and global sustainability. The book also considers the measurement of social welfare in relation to environmental issues and resource extraction, especially changes over time and comparison between countries. Theoretical material is complemented by case studies on petroleum extraction in Norway and soil degradation in Tanzania, to which the pragmatic methods are applied. The author challenges the view that environmental degradation is best included in welfare measurement and argues that many of the proposals for adjusted welfare measurements are better interpreted as adjustments of national income. Economic Growth and the Environment will be indispensable to environmental accountants, environmental organizations interested in green accounting and students studying sustainability issues.

This open access book analyzes the transition toward a low-carbon energy system in Europe under the aspects of flexibility and technological progress. By covering the main energy sectors - including the industry, residential, tertiary and transport sector as well as the heating and electricity sector - the analysis assesses flexibility requirements in a cross-sectoral energy system with high shares of renewable energies. The contributing authors - all European energy experts - apply models and tools from various research fields, including techno-economic learning, fundamental energy system modeling, and environmental and social life cycle as well as health impact assessment, to develop an innovative and comprehensive energy models system (EMS). Moreover, the contributions examine renewable penetrations and their contributions to climate change mitigation, and the impacts of available technologies on the energy system. Given its scope, the book appeals to researchers studying energy systems and markets, professionals and policymakers of the energy industry and readers interested in the transformation to a low-carbon energy system in Europe.

Technology breakthroughs in sustainable renewable energy and energy conservation technologies require that there be a strong institutional ecosystem in place which supports innovation, but the nature of this foundation and how it works is not well-known. Becoming a leader necessitates new forms of cross-sector cooperation.

The aim of this book is to offer a river-basin management plan which is directly implementable and consistent with the European Union -Water Framework Directive (EU WFD).The contributors, who are leading world experts in their respective fields, develop an integrated water resources management plan for the Asopos river basin in Greece which is economically efficient, socially equitable and environmentally sustainable. The program offers explicit technical and investment solutions, socioeconomic and legal instruments and recommendations for institutional restructuring. The introductory chapter describes the water situation in Greece and assesses the potential of timely implementation of the EU WFD. Special emphasis is given to the cost-recovery principle. Chapter 2 introduces the case study area highlighting the particular pressures and impacts as well as the environmental functions and values of Asopos River and Oropos Lagoon. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the economic characterisation of Asopos River Basin in order to identify the economic sectors and social groups that will bear the cost and benefits of the implementation of the EU WFD. In particular, Chapter 3 presents the main water uses and pricing for water supply in the industrial and the agricultural sectors. Chapter 4 completes the baseline appraisal, presenting the details of water use by the residential and touristic sectors. The following chapters assess valuation and decision-making tools from a range of perspectives, including agricultural needs, valuing the impacts of industrial activity, the costs and benefits of environmental preservation and management. The water resources management plan is presented in Chapter 9; the concluding chapter offers recommendations on institutional changes and presents the lessons learned as resources applicable to other river basins in Greece and elsewhere. The book applies state-of-the art market and non-market valuation methods to estimate water demands in the residential, industrial, agricultural, tourism, environmental and health sectors and to balance these, over time and space, with water supply. Given the well-known challenge of managing natural resources in a way that maximizes and sustains social welfare, this book will provide an invaluable point of reference for applied researchers and policy makers working in water resources management.

The issue of climate change is now widely recognised as one of the major challenges for mankind in the 21st century, not only because it may ultimately affect many areas of our environment, nature and human activity but also because its mitigation may have far reaching consequences for almost all sectors of the economy where energy conversion takes place. Although climate change is firmly positioned on the political agenda and some initial targets have been agreed within a global framework, we are still far away from a mature political and practical policy which may deliver timely and appropriate results .to tum the tide. This is partly due to the complex nature of a possible global climate change regime, the still early stage of the development of effective and efficient instruments and the wide variety of possible ramifications for individual countries and economic sectors. But it is also due to the complexity of the negotiation process, and the lack of effective international or even global governance and leadership to tackle a multi-dimensional problem of this size and nature. This book is the first broad attempt to address the issue of leadership by one of the major parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in the ongoing international debate and negotiations towards such a policy which inevitably has to be constructed on a global scale.

The transfer study, a technique used in cost-benefit analysis, is an increasingly important tool used by government agencies to assess environmental regulatory policy. This innovative book develops protocols for using the transfer method to approach environmental problems and introduces several significant conceptual and methodological advances that refine the transfer process. The transfer approach to quantitative policy analysis adapts information and data from existing studies and so provides an economical way to assess potential benefits and costs for projects. The book presents a detailed framework for examining the transfer of information, outlines the basic steps of the method, and discusses solutions to frequently encountered problems. It then illustrates the method with an extensive case study of environmental externalities from electricity generation. This case study provides the opportunity to discuss salient aspects of the transfer method in more detail, including conceptual principles, the quality of original studies, empirical difficulties and estimation techniques. It also demonstrates the use of state-of-the-art techniques such as meta analysis to synthesise and transfer information from multiple studies and assesses the reliability of the transfer estimates with repeated computer simulations, a technique known as Monte Carlo analysis. Environmental Policy Analysis with Limited Information will appeal to environmental policy analysts and managers as well as environmental economists.

Differing interpretations, perspectives and expectations on the term sustainability exist. To take sustainability as an action guiding mandate for implementation it needs to be concrete and measurable as well it should weigh pros and cons. But how can such an integrated measurement in the field of renewable energy be conducted balancing the trade-offs between opposing indicators? Glances at Renewable and Sustainable Energy provides a thorough overview on the generic principles of sustainability assessment, including projective, thresholding and systemic principles and summarizes five common approaches for a holistic measurement. Approaches such as multi criteria decision analysis, ecological footprint analysis and normative-functional concepts are applied to different case studies in developed-, emerging and developing countries to cover a wide bandwidth of various renewable energy carriers under various conditions. Each case study includes 2 boxes illustrating the scheme behind the approach and exemplary calculations to allow a systematic comparison and a critical reflection of the methods applied. Compiling results on renewable energy assessment of the last decades, Glances at Renewable and Sustainable Energy gives researchers, students, consultants, politicians and entrepreneurs the tools to advance their oriental and instructional knowledge on sustainability and sustainability measurement, to reflect their decisions and tools for analysis and to transfer this knowledge into problem-solving.